Measurement of Muon Neutrino Quasi-Elastic Scattering on a Hydrocarbon Target at E_{ u} ~ 3.5 GeV


Abstract in English

We report a study of muon neutrino charged-current quasi-elastic events in the segmented scintillator inner tracker of the MINERvA experiment running in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. The events were selected by requiring a {mu}^- and low calorimetric recoil energy separated from the interaction vertex. We measure the flux-averaged differential cross-section, d{sigma}/dQ^2, and study the low energy particle content of the final state. Deviations are found between the measured d{sigma}/dQ^2 and the expectations of a model of independent nucleons in a relativistic Fermi gas. We also observe an excess of energy near the vertex consistent with multiple protons in the final state.

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